Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report

Lake Stevens 70.3 was to be our 7th 70.3 since we started the Tri The World tour.
We both certainly took advantage of the 3 weeks off to rest our bodies and mentally prepare ourselves for the rest of the journey.
We filled our time with media engagements, visits to see Paul Phillips at Westboro Massage and Duane Smith over at Westboro Chiro (thanks boys!!), a bit of training but mostly our regular jobs!

We flew out on Thursday evening after a ride to the Airport kindly provided again by the PackedApps Team Van. We were scheduled to fly Ottawa-Chicago-Seattle. As what seems to be a pattern, we were held up in Chicago for several hours, leaving us to find our hotel in downtown Seattle by 2am (5am Ottawa time)!!! Yet again, we find ourselves arriving to our destination with no meal to be ad before we retired for the night.

With the next day being July 4th, Independence Day, we had a scheduled day off. We enjoyed Seattle after a late sleep in. We saw the Pikes Market and the aquarium, along with the fireworks ending the day.

In the AM, we packed up and headed 45 min north towards Lake Stevens. The host hotel and registration was in Everett, WA. We went immediately to registration where we happened upon Sister Madonna Buder….simply amazing. With yet another pre-race meeting complete, we headed to Denny’s for the first meal of the day! We then drove on another 20 min to the race site in Lake Stevens.
We then parked and started the process of building the bikes. We have done this in parking lots, fields, hotel rooms and now, on the side of the road. As we have mentioned, we have seen no other BLUE bikes and only one other set of Spinergy wheels, so we seem to draw quite a bit of attention when ever we build them….yet another great op to spread the TTW message! As we were doing this, we bumped into some friends of ours and chatted for a bit, solidifying plans for our pre-race meal.

We were all checked in and bikes set on the racks, we head off to drive the course. We have always liked to do that when possible to know what the day ahead brings.
We had a great meal with our friends and chatted about the day ahead.

We rose early and headed back to Lake Stevens. With the cloud cover looming, we thought we may see rain! The lake was calm, so THAT was a great sign for both of us, and the rain held out all day!

The Swim:
With what we would now consider nice and warm water, Brian headed off on the swim first with Heather following 15 minutes later. There was a line in the water just like in Placid, so no doubt, sighting was MUCH easier than usual. The body contact was intense with defensive measures necessary! We both swam well and both pleased with our times.

We headed off on a ride course that many had touted as a tough bike course with big hills. We assume they had not expected US to be there with the 70.3 experience we have had this year…hahaha! We both felt that this course was very similar to a lap of Placid so used the down hills as momentum for the ups. We BOTH wanted a turnaround from our experience in the UK. Mission accomplished as we were both happy with the rides. They were incident free and within our anticipated times.

The run course was a two lap course with an out and back section built into it. We hopped to see each on the run as usual and it was just over the mile mark when we hooked up. This is by far, our FAVE part of the race. Heather and I chat for our usual mid-race debrief and share some smiles and stories. She headed off to complete yet another stellar run. I followed a tad bit later being pleased with my run for sure as I felt like it was well managed. By managed, I mean well executed and we were able to chat with others about our quest.

We were both happy with race number 7. It went as planned and I believe gave both of us the mental strength to conquer the upcoming stretch.

We leave this weekend back to the west coast to Sonoma County California. We then return first thing Monday and back on the plane Friday to Newfoundland, our only Canadian stop. The following week we head back to Europe for two races….so yes, that means FOUR 70.3`s in FOUR weekends….!

Wish us luck!